


You Are the Best

by tricatular



Category: 2NE1
Genre: F/F, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricatular/pseuds/tricatular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After hurting herself onstage, Minzy needs a little pep talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are the Best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaplian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaplian/gifts).



Performing live is a crush of sensory overload: backing tracks booming in her ears, heat sticking her hair to the back of her neck, the pulsing scream of the fans and the spotlights scattering across the stage and winking off the sequins on their costumes. Being this alive is delirious, almost too much to feel without breaking.

“SCREAM,” CL demands of the crowd, and they do, lightsticks flashing in spastic swoops in between the flashes of the spotlights.

Minzy has practiced this choreography so many times: step back, shoulder shake, lean, lean, lean – but suddenly the controlled slide onto the stage explodes in spike of pain up her ankle and breath whooshes out of her lungs as her back collides with the floor. Lights swerve in and out of her eyes, blinding her; she tries to stand up, but the world tilts around her and she half-collapses back onto her elbows with a groan.

Sparkles appear above her, glittering in every direction and at first she thinks she’s about to pass out, but then she realizes it’s CL, trying to yell something above the backtrack and the fans screaming. She can’t hear anything, but she looks up mutely and holds up her hand, and ignores the stab of pain all up her leg as CL pulls her back onto her feet.

There’s a big man wearing all black charging out from the side – he’s gesturing at her, asking if she needs to stop, but she shakes her head, gritting her teeth against another wave of dizziness. Two more songs: she can do this. She is _not_ going to hobble off stage like this, in front of all their fans who came to see a show.

The man doesn’t look happy, but he lets her go, and CL turns them to face the crowd, holding their joined hands up as the fans’ cheering swells into a roar. They’re skipping straight to the start of Fire, and she half-jogs over to take her position.

The next two songs are a haze of pain, her ankle throbbing in time to the beat and sweat breaking out on the backs of her arms and just under her hairline – she freestyles her last dance solo to avoid a series of jumps, and she can see Dara giving her a sideways look but if she has to land on that ankle she _is_ going to pass out.

The lights go down, and she makes it halfway to the stage door before she passes out anyway.

**

She wakes up in a mint green gown in a white bed, makeup scrubbed off her face and her stage clothes nowhere to be found. Her ankle throbs, but not with the same sickening pain; under the blankets she can feel that it’s been bandaged.

Beside the bed is a small collection of flowers and balloons, a fuzzy teddy bear, and a few cards. Most of them are from fans, but right at the front there’s a big card from her groupmates, attached, inexplicably, to an oversized stuffed cockatoo.

Frowning, she picks up the card: it’s full of ridiculous cartoon drawings and get-well wishes, with a PS at the bottom in Bom’s handwriting: _parrots are the best dancers in the animal kingdom…except for you!_

When she checks her phone, the four of them have all spammed her with ridiculous compilation videos of birds dancing to ridiculous American pop songs, which keeps her busy until the nurse finally arrives with their manager and a pair of physical therapists. As it turns out, Minji has a sprained ankle, which would have been a small problem but turned into a big one when she kept dancing on it through two more songs and an encore.

She’s going to have physical therapy. She’s going to need a great big foot brace. They’re going to have to cancel a dance battle. Their manager rattles off the list of problems, scolding her for not taking care of herself, but she can’t help thinking of how many times she’s been shuffled around from appearance to appearance without more than a few hours of sleep in the back of a van. Apparently, the line between dedication and carelessness is whether or not you can hide the problem with a layer of concealer and a cup of coffee.

She pulls the plush cockatoo off the table and curls up in the blankets, hugging it to her chest.

**

The next day, the rest of the group is allowed to come and visit her, bringing even more balloons and encouraging reports from the fans.

"They support you," Dara says earnestly, "they really do. We got right on top of explaining everything that happened - "

"She was on her phone before she even took a shower after the show," Bom cuts in to complain, "it was a full-on Communications Director attack," and Dara shoves her sideways.

There are even weird memes to laugh over (a disco wrecking ball? Really?): they get so giggly that the nurses come in to shoo the other girls away in the name of letting her rest, but Chaerin begs a few more minutes with a promise to be quiet.

Her eyes flash, and for a moment, she’s CL again, not Chaerin. “You’re not taking any crap for this from the label, are you?”

Minji’s silence is all the confirmation she needs.

“You can’t let them do that to you. Stand up to them. Tell them you’re not going to take it.”

She thinks of Chaerin, refusing to give in to plastic surgery and then writing a song to celebrate it to auditoriums full of girls screaming along.

“I’m not you.” She squeezes the cockatoo a little tighter. “I can’t just do those things.”

“Sure you can.” Chaerin reaches into her bag and pulls out something huge and gold and glittery. “I even brought you a good-luck charm, see?”

It’s her ridiculous necklace from the music video from The Baddest Female, a giant disc of gold that falls down over her stomach. She’d insisted on keeping it afterward, not as a stage prop but to wear when life gets hard and Chaerin needs a little boost from CL.

It looks ridiculous layered over Minji’s hospital gown, but she can wear it under her clothes. “Thanks.”

Chaerin grins at her, and then reaches down into her bag again. “Hey, I brought you something else, too. Move over, we’re watching a dumb movie until I have to go get ready for this interview.”

She scoots over to the side of the bed so Chaerin can climb in under the covers with her, careful of her leg, and settle her laptop across both of their legs. Her shampoo hides the flat, hospital-antiseptic smell of the room, and her clothes are comfortingly out of place in the muted world of white and pastels.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep on Chaerin’s shoulder, but when she wakes up, the necklace is still stuck to her skin under the hospital gown, the cockatoo nestled in the crook of her arm, and there’s a note in Chaerin’s handwriting on the table: _you are the best_.

**Author's Note:**

> [Parrots actually are the best dancers in the animal kingdom!](http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2014/04/01/297686709/the-list-of-animals-who-can-truly-really-dance-is-very-short-who-s-on-it)


End file.
